General WoD Chat

Well, it would be 'Acme' because of their 'we make everything' catalogues and the fact Coyote would get deliveries faster than even Prime would kill to achieve. Even though Coyote's in the middle of nowhere. A VA variant might be 'Calling the Operator' a la The Matrix.

After all, if the Syndicate is so large and wealthy, what's saying they don't maintain massive warehouses of kit ready to be 'teleported' to the appropriate drop/drone boxes when needed?

How about a drone-delivered Tarsus? *smirks*

"OK, I just placed a delivery for the portable particle accelerator."
*Paradox happens*
*Delivery box is dropped by drone*
"Well... I suppose a slingshot accelerates particles, too..."
*Slingshot explodes for no reason*

*Delivery box is dropped by drone*

Define 'drop'. Nobody wants a Tarsus being dropped say 200m. Right on your position.

Well, Paradox being Paradox, I suppose a botched order would be dropped from that altitude, and damn the insurance policy.

After all, if the Syndicate is so large and wealthy, what's saying they don't maintain massive warehouses of kit ready to be 'teleported' to the appropriate drop/drone boxes when needed?

Depending on the setting, roughly this is how it went in the 2e Technocracy book. Requisitions background for any PC technocrat was basically that mix of performance and sucking up needed to be on the good side of someone who is willing to give or lend you stuff you need. Outsourcing is one of the ways listed for Syndicate, via Disbursement Division (aka Pentex). So I would assume there are a network of resources, heavily guarded, etc. In modern times I could totally see a private corporate delivery service as a front for stuff too (for lols I'm now imagining it being called Acme as a slang word and the buyers coyotes, which I guess would make those pesky Traddies the roadrunners).

I was more thinking on the way(s) of making it coincidental - as long as the Syndicate Op *believes* that they've got access to massive warehouses full of every need, a massive amount of drop-boxes etc having the flamethrower turn up in that box is perfectly logical. [Naturally, I'm assuming that teleportation is 'accepted' within the Union].

It would also seriously help lessen the technomancer 'reliance on kit' issues.

I think it could be done in a pretty coincidental way but direct teleporting is still going to be something that garners paradox potentially if it's not just ways of making the transportation chain simpler. Using Data sphere or Correspondence for logistics should be pretty coincidental. Technocrats /can/ do things that mundies can't it's stuff that's not yet got 'the masses' but I doubt just anyone would be able to get everything they ant, whenever they want. Hence the background if its an IC thing or a GM planning thing or one could use entropy, as well to make it 'more likely.' Syndicate are the ones named for using that sphere in the old book, which kinda makes sense if you think about the stock markets. But also could be a supply chain thing. There's some new stuff on using money as prime too.

Well, if I was ST I'd have 'Acme' to be the far most expensive way to shop; you've paying for the convenience more than anything else. Pricing is judged on size, complexity and location; meaning that in reality it's only the most senior brass who can 'afford' to get cars delivered to remote cabins in Montana. It's also possible that each field agent/amalgam gets issued with 'Acme credits' before missions to allow them to 'purchase' emergency gear which may be needed in the field.

It would also be a good way for the Syndicate to claw back some of the funding they give the other Conventions... always watch The Bottom Line, no?

Well, it makes sense; the ACME warehouses are probably run like the Amazon shipping centers, too, so there's always a small chance of "human error" in what the agent actually receives. You order delivery of the software suite to fix the onboard computer in a recent-model car, and end up receiving a portable GPS, just because you botched a simple little procedure... or because someone higher up has taken to carry a small grudge against you.

And of course, I suppose this'd require some sort of Resources roll, too.

Or perhaps a combination of the above; big warehouses of 'usual stuff' to be delivered via teleporting, then there's the 'Prime Service' which bespoke stuff can be immediately produced and dispatched. The latter would be much more 'costly' for there would be two 'spells', not one; first to make the object [Matter/Life/whatever], then to dispatch.

Naturally, Resources roll. With my ST hat on, I'd say one dot higher than it would usually cost. Unless they've been given some tokens.

This isn't actually that far off our RL level, actually; Amazon is trying out drone deliveries, 3D printers are getting very good and so on. It's one of the reasons an fully updated Technocracy book is needed - so many of their old Wonders and so on are so dated now! [I mean, who's going to get a 2-dot wonder which is less effective than a mundie smartphone?]

A fully new Technocracy book just got funded with over 20 stretch goals lol. So that's pretty sweet. But elsewise I just use the general idea of the thing at the time and use it as a guideline. But yeah I pretty much think that's how it would work, too generally.

Personally, I'd love to have a book which simply lists loads and loads of Wonders, Rotes and so on [perhaps *all* the ones done to date?]

I'd buy that, which is one of the most important things.

There used to be some compilations around but they got scrubbed off the net for copyright issues, but there's also the Storyteller's Vault now so there's community content, which has variable quality - some is useful and really good though (I like a lot of the Changeling entries). I got one called the Mystic Armory from the M:ta 20 section but haven't read the whole thing over. It does indeed have a number of Wonders and items from previous books in it though but I'm not sure if the entries themselves have been given a once over to update them if they needed it (I haven't cross referenced). https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/261442/Mystic-Armory

Rotes otoh got to be more of a big thing than they may have meant to be, they're useful to start out to get to know what you can do but a lot of the old ones vary between editions a lot so that can be challenging. Still they're pretty fun, I like looking over ones from Ars Magica too for ideas for 'cool old spell names.' But the same person who did Mystic Armory did Enlightened Grimoire, same kind of cache but updated to the author's best at applying the modern rules. I haven't gotten this one yet (it's in my pick list for next time I get some material). https://www.storytellersvault.com/product/249171/Enlightened-Grimoire

Yeah, I know; I managed to partly find one memory holed using Wayback Machine, remember? Old 'Wyrmfoe' for WtA is still around, though [though they don't cover Fera or DA].

Thing is, I think that the business model of old WW is partly obsolete; basically the 'lots of Splats' method. How many of them were 50% rehash from other splats, 25% filler and 25% 'new stuff'? Think the internet has killed this, just like the likes of Spotify et al have killed 'Best Of...' albums [why pay that cash for the three songs you want and seven fillers when you can simply get the former?]

Back to Rotes and the like, first off it's fairly likely that every Tradition has 'basic sets' floating about, either learned from their mentor(s) or from the apprentice tomes. Similar for kit; Nick is *highly* unlikely to be the first Etherite to need, say an 'element scanner'. Which ties back to the discussion we had yonks back; whether there's 'instruction manuals' floating around the Society [and beyond...] detailing the production of basic tools/foci/etc - after all, there's no need for Nick to re-make the wheel any more than there is for Adley to re-write a basic fireball spell.

One of the major problems with MtA is that it's a steep learning-curve even if you're familiar with say, VtM or WtA. A shed-load of basic Rotes helps this - it's the equivalent of a basic cookbook for a newbie chef ['here's a load of recipes which work']. It also means once the person gets a grip on them, then they can start modding them, ending with making their own creations from scratch.

Lastly, it helps with inspiration. As you'd suspect, I spend some time looking at the Technocracy books for ideas, but I also look at say, Glass Walkers and so on. One of Nick's Rotes is - if I remember right - a converted Euthanatos one.

But back to the original point. If Paradox wants us to ditch our thumbed copies and PDFs of varying legality so we buy the new stuff, they need to offer us something new. And full 'compilation books' are both something which has never been done and have real utility.

I don't know if they'd even still be in WBM - they were on purpose erased due to copyright stuff around when M20 came out. But yeah totally that's how rotes work best I feel like, stuff passed on. Yep Mage is a big learning curve no matter what, and I think they help get a handle on how magick can work. It's just when people start to over-rely on them instead of trying new stuff, they spend a lot of time looking for a thing that's already been made - the magick system is made to be combined and granted it is not that easy. I felt like the book How Do You Do That that came out was really good to help get the basics of what can you do with what down and M20 in general is more balanced across the spheres now. And for sure inspo is fun, like I said I like looking at the Ars Magica ones too, same reason plus the history of it is transferable about 85%+

But as for them doing new stuff, they are kinda not going to do that aside from the Vault, because they're moving into 5th ed now, and M20 is an Onyx path thing. It's all complicated when it came to to who can use what property when and why, and I'd have to dig up the posts about it but I think the best we're likely to get aside from what will come out for the planned through KS are the Vault materials which include Victorian Mage, though which I am really looking forward to seeing.

ps - it took me a long time to get a handle on paradigm, even more than magick, because that's even more essential than what spheres have you got to use. I had a VA character first and I found out that I didn't know that much about computers aside form basic stuff and yeah, I learned some stuff about communication theory, set theory, (god forbid, my nemesis, MATHS) holography and computers. It took me years to develop a good solid paradigm that could grow with the character I made, and then it was a lot easier to know how they would do something and if they could do it. I was afraid of making an OoH character b/c I felt that it was too overwhelming, but the mystic stuff clicks more for me lol plus a lot of RL material is out there from actual hermetic sources.

I just picked up some books on the STV as Drivethru is having a 25% off in July sale - so the compilation for rotes book, the Enlightened Grimoire is one I grabbed. Thumbing through it, it references all the books the original rotes were in and it has a lot of options though it's a summarized version of them. It's well laid out for the most part. I haven't yet scrutinized how well the sphere combos stack up to the M20 standard for updating purposes but it seems okay so far (the rotes come from everything all the way from 1st edition) but it looks like a good book to get some ideas without having to buy every single old edition and update them all. They have a basic premise and some more than others can probably be tweaked or reworked as concepts. (The appendix with 'rote rules' is honestly something the game creators did away with almost as soon as the idea of buying rotes was debut (I think it was in revised). I don't find the suggested optional ruleset included here any better than those, they lean too heavy on the formulaic stuff. It turns mages into something limited like sorcerers, which they're not).

There's also another nice addition to the STV called Sources of Magic which is about Nodes (and associated phenomena like wellsprings, etc). This is a very nice in depth look at nodes, resonance, tass and etc. for Mage and it has a few rotes in it regarding them, as well as a whole section on how to build a node. it also goes over resonances and synergy, pulled from the Las Vegas book and other books, using it to frame and define node types. It also talks about how tass doesn't have to be physical - an example is that you can get tass from nightmares under certain circumstances (which I would wonder could count as changeling glamour to changelings. The book describes mind-tass as requiring mind 1 to capture, and includes things like inspiration which does seem very much like glamour. As well, it contains a merit for some Mind nodes with appropriate resonance to act as Freeholds for fey, so I would say that's the idea behind it. Similarly it talks about spirit based nodes being similar to purified ephemera and tend to be on shallowlings and attract spirits). It's a good book and well laid out (a few typos here and there)